Worms

Game: Worms
Developer: Team17
Platform: Amiga (but ported to other consoles. I played this on a PlayStation).
Release Year: 1995
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Worms is a classic turn based artillery game similar to Scorched Earth.

Basic Plot

There was no plot but the scenario involves teams of earth worms fighting against each other in combat using a huge arsenal of weaponry.

Gameplay

Worms is a turned based artillery game where players control a team of earth worms. The objective of each match is to eliminate the worms from all opposing teams.

Turns rotated from each team and each turn a player was given control of a different worm (in rotation also). During a turn the player had a limited amount of time to move their worm and use a weapon of some kind.

Each worm had a certain amount of hit points and when this dropped below 1 the worm died. Additionally the player could fall below the edge of the screen (drop to their death), die in water or other environments, and also fall out either side of the screen and die. A common strategy was to use explosives to knock enemies out of the game arena.

Weapons were broken into three categories; unlimited use weapons (bazooka, grenades, etc), limited use weaponry (cluster bombs, etc), and utility weapons such as blowtorch.

Unlimited use weapons could be used at any time and were perfectly capable of destroying an enemy but good aiming was required. When firing some weapons the player had to aim, and then hold down the fire key and release at the desired "power" level. The higher the power, the further and faster the projectile would travel. Other weapons simply required you to aim and fire. Some example weapons;

• The bazooka required you to aim and choose the power of the shot. The bazooka was affected by wind, and would explode on impact.
• The grenade was similar to the bazooka but was set to explode after a short delay. This allowed the player to bounce the grenade into areas that a bazooka otherwise couldn't.
• The uzi fired off bullets in the direction that the player aimed the worm but didn't require you to set the power when firing.
• Mines or dynamite were different again in that the worm would "drop" the mine or dynamite at a desired location and then had a short period of time to run away from the blast zone.
• Air strikes could be dropped from above over a large area of the map and required the player to choose the direction the strike would come down from only.

Limited use weapons traditionally have more power but because of their limited number of uses had to be used sparingly at the right moment.  Dynamite had the largest blast of any weapon but each player only recieved one per game (depending how you set it up).

Utility items and weapons were quite different. Blowtorches allowed the player to dig through the ground and make tunnels. This was an important part of the game and probably where the worms theme comes from. Another item was the "girder" which was a metal beam the player could place anywhere on the map. This could be used to create a protective barrier over one of your own worms, or to create a wall near an enemy worm to bounce a grenade off.

Additional weapons could be obtained during the game by "weapon drops" that occurred randomly and periodically. These included some secret weapons including the banana bomb and the exploding sheep.

The game featured comic voice effects for the worms.

Game modes included AI matches as well as turn based games against your friends.

Positives

Comic and light hearted game which you could compete against your friends. Well executed and fun.

Negatives

Nothing strikes me as a negative although the game hardly stands out as one that changed my life.

Memorable Moments

I really enjoyed girders especially for sealing an opponent worm into an area that they then had to escape from, or creating a funnel to help aim my grenades at them.

As an easter egg two of the weapons the worms could use were the fireball and dragon punch that Ken and Ryu can use in Street Fighter II.